Astronomy, Graphics & Video Software [WAS: VMWare / Wine]

[Patton Echols]

On 02/23/2007 02:19 PM, Tommy Trussell wrote:
> I can't help with most of these but ...
>
> On 2/22/07, Patton Echols <p.echols at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Cartes du Ciel - Yes there is a linux version in Beta.  It is very rough
>> around the edges.  The windows version is a little clunky, the linux
>> version is worse, both usability and display.  (For planetarium
>> software, minimum requirement is the ability to select and deselect
>> catalogs on the fly including the Tycho-2, WDS, SAO, etc.  )  If that
>> was the ONLY reason I still needed windows, I'd probably bite the bullet
>> and buy XEphem.
>>     
>
>
>   
>> Virtual Moon Atlas - Not even a Beta AFAIK
>>     
>
> How about http://moon.google.com/   --?
>
>   

Thank you so much for taking the trouble to look for it.  I'm familiar 
with that particular Google app.  (It made the rounds of our astronomy 
club when it came out.)  Unfortunately there is an . . . odd . . . 
resolution effect at maximum zoom that makes it quite unusable. ;-)

>> registax - able to extract frames from an avi, select the least
>> distorted frames, align, stack and process into an image, with
>> selections for "drizzle" mode, derotation, wavelet processing, etc.
>> (This one says it runs under wine, but I'll need to upgrade to version 4)
>>     
>
>
>   
>> WinOccult - A program for predicting lunar and asteroid occultations of
>> bright stars,
>>     
>
> How about http://occult.tungstentech.com/default.aspx  --?
>   

Hmmm, I was not familiar with this site.  Unfortunately, it does  not 
give enough detail about the path or star charts to be what I'm looking 
for.  But useful to bookmark . . .
If you are curious, this site: http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/ uses 
the output of winoccult.  Follow the links in the "detail" column.

>   
>> HP PhotoDelux (like Photoshop Lite) -- Yes, yes, I know that the Gimp is
>> supposed to be great - and I am determined to spend the time to figure
>> it out if I can, (especially since Photodelux is on the home desktop and
>> not the lappy where it belongs.) But it seems to me that the interfaces
>> are completely non intuitive.  Just trying to crop a picture left me
>> pulling hair out, let alone trying to get a layer to act as advertised . . .
>>     
>
> If all you need to do is resize, crop, simple color adjust, etc., then
> the gThumb image viewer that comes with Ubuntu ought to do what you
> want. It's pretty straightforward. Just right-click on an image and
> choose "Open With ...--> gThumb Image Viewer"
>
>   

Yeah, I have already used gThumb a bit and like it.  The "heavy lifting" 
in image processing goes to creating multiple layer images, manipulating 
the layers individually and then collapseing them into the final image.  
For my images to make people smile, it is usually the "clone," "erase" 
and "smudge" tools.  (Example, taking two vacation pictures from the 
"space needle" in Seattle, use the background with the well exposed 
landscape, and the well exposed foreground with the people, and take out 
the cables that are intended to keep the jumpers on the roof . . .)  For 
astronomy, the layers need to be aligned, color balanced, reference 
frames subtracted and divided out, histograms stretched, etc.  Some of 
this I don't think the Gimp can handle either, but that's another subject.

Thanks again for your interest and looking for some of this stuff


Patton